\documentclass[char]{castle}
\usepackage{comment}
\begin{document}

\name{\cJones{}}

% MACROECONOMICS: Jones wants Immortalium and a \iMacroParts{}.

What an opportunity this is! A chance to explore the great Castle Heterodyne! You really should have come here years ago. Except that then the traps would have been active, and although you make a living investigating abandoned spark fortresses, you are not suicidal.

You are \cJones{\full}, professor of History at \cityJones{} Polytechnic University, but other than providing useful credentials, you try to avoid your home institution as much as possible. Ugh. Students! So that leaves you with field work. Interviewing sparks about their past. Using this information to find long lost cities, and abandoned underground lairs. Investigating said landmarks to recover lost artifacts, gadgets made by sparks of old. Using said gadgets to escape the various death-traps that such places are inevitably littered with. You know: field work.

Sadly, it's so hard to make an honest living these days. Despite the stability brought by the Pax Transylvania, the Baron has really been cracking down on trade in spark equipment. The standard museums that you used to deal with have been off the table for years now, and you've needed to rely on various black market traders to make a profit off of your various forays, meaning that your amazing finds become the property of a few private collectors, rather than being displayed prominently for all or Europe to see. If only someone would take the Baron down a peg!

But Wulfenbach isn't your only problem. There's something much stranger going on. Over the past several years you've noticed a disturbing pattern. Several of your expeditions have found that some artifacts, ones that you are sure should be there, are \emph{missing}. The heavily trapped lockbox is there, but the contents are missing. But not everything. A toy perpetual motion machine will be missing while the philosopher's stone remains. No sane person would have taken one but not the other. These events puzzled you until you began to hear the rumors. A city lost in the desert with a device at its center. A device that collects pieces of abandoned equipment randomly from around the world. A device that is removing artifacts from their historical context before they can be catalogued and understood. A device that is destroying your very livelihood. A device that you must find and ensure that it never functions again.

These difficulties were really starting to take their toll on you. You were even considering retiring altogether. That was before recent opportunities presented themselves. You were in the process of preparing a book on the feud between the \familyA{}'s and the \familyB{}'s. To that effect you had a scheduled interview with \cPirate{\full}. When you arrived at \cPirate{\their} lab at the appointed time though, you came across a pirate standing over \cPirate{\their} unconscious form working a complex piece of machinery. Obviously, you intervened. You caught the pirate by surprise, and struggled for several seconds, accidentally activating the machine.

The pirate fell unconscious, but \cPirate{} sprang to life and began attacking you, calling for guards. You tried to explain the situation, but the attack caught you off guard and you soon found yourself in dire straights. Had the pirate not awoken and joined you in the fight, you are not sure what would have happened. As it was though, \cSpacer{\they} helped you fend off \cPirate{}, and then practically dragged you to a waiting whirlycoptor as the guards began to close in.

During your escape you had some time to talk to your new companion. You found that your companion had no memory of what \cSpacer{\they} had been doing there, or anything else from before \cSpacer{\they} came to your aid. \cSpacer{\They} couldn't even remember \cSpacer{\their} own name, but decided to go by \cSpacer{} until some replacement could be found. This left a lot of unanswered questions about what had just happened, but you weren't about to abandon your savior---especially while \cSpacer{\they} was still flying the skycraft.

Unfortunately, amnesia and machines apparently don't mix well. You began to lose altitude over Mechanicsburg. You lost altitude quickly, descending upon Castle Heterodyne. With no time to spare, you pulled out your emergency harmonic decelerator. As you grabbed \cSpacer{\them}, a strange orange crystal fell out of \cSpacer{}'s pocket, losing itself somewhere in the castle, as the two of you managed to safely descend into it's depths. Something about that crystal seemed familiar. One of your biologist colleges was going on about it. Something about eternal youth. Definitely worth investigating.

It took some time for you and \cSpacer{} some time to dig your way out of the rubble around you, only to find yourselves lost in the midst of the castle. Now normally Castle Heterodyne is a deathtrap, but something about your crash seems to have made it more stable. This news seems to have attracted a number of visitors trying to take advantage of the opportunities presented by this, not that you can blame them. This is the adventure of a lifetime and full of useful opportunities to boot.

For one, this place must be full of historical devices for you to plunder. In particular, you've heard tales of the Heterodynes building a \memoryMacGuffin{}, a device capable of storing and retrieving human memories. A device that would make the tedious process of interviewing subjects infinitely easier, and provide a much clearer record for future generations. Plus, the castle itself is a fortress. If you could just reactivate the air defense systems, you could give the Baron something else to think about other than making the lives of honest historians difficult.

On the other hand, so many interesting people are here. Oh, the tales you could coax out of them. Clarify the historical record and all that. Maybe piece together the locations of a few more dig sites. Maybe finally pin down that irritating desert city. Plus all the people might allow you to finally unload this weapons stockpile you've been sitting on. Your dean wants you to teach next semester, but he's been desperate for spare parts to fix his time viewer. Maybe if you found some for him, he'd let you ignore your teaching duties for a while longer.

There's so much to do and so little time before the castle's systems come back online leaving you trapped forever. Better get started.

\begin{itemz}[Goals]
\item Find out the history of this place and of any of the important visitors. Hopefully you can find enough to write your book on the feud between the houses of \familyA{} and \familyB{}.
\item Find the \memoryMacGuffin{}.
\item Find the orange crystal.
\item Collect any valuable artifacts or devices that you find.
\item Obtain parts for your university.
\item Activate the air defense systems to fight the Baron.
\item Find the lost city that is stealing your artifacts.
\item Help \cSpacer{} recover \cSpacer{\their} memories.
\end{itemz}

\begin{contacts}
    \contact{\cSpacer{}} The mysterious \cSpacer{\human} who seems to have fought with you and later saved you, and now seems to remember almost nothing.
    \contact{\cPirate{}} Your first interviewee with family \familyB{}. Not that it turned out how you expected.
\end{contacts}

\begin{comment}
\begin{itemz}[Draft of goals]
  \item Writing a history on the families
  \item Talk to people and find out their backstories
  \item Find memory MacGuffin
  \item Locate City of Lost Machines
  \item Collect all the shinies (valuable artifacts)
  \item Work towards defeating the Baron: anti-Baronify the castle.
\end{itemz}
\end{comment}

\end{document}
